Not your Usual Fairytale
by Rosa Angelicus
Summary: For Lavender341. The journey seemed like a fairytale. Princess in trouble. Knight in shining armour coming to the rescue, liberating a friend from the darkness in the process. Thing is, the knight isn't in love with the princess. He likes his friend.


**A/N:** AT LONG LAST! Finally finished this one-shot for the ever lovely Lavender341. Reason: Reviewer Number 200 (looks at review count over at MA and has a huge sweatdrop go down her forehead) Yeah, I'm a bit behind now aren't I? Oh well, at least we got it here now. Enjoy!

* * *

Sora looked out to the playground island once more, fond memories flooding him. He was home, the worlds were safe once more, and he had been reunited with his friends. Why then was it that he felt so empty then? 

There was something not right in this story. For one, it was supposed to be like one of those fairytales Kairi read so often as a little girl. Kairi, the Princess of Heart, was captured. Sora, the Chosen Wielder of the Keyblade, set forth to rescue her. After defeating evil, he had rescued said princess and was supposed to go back to Destiny Islands to live out their happily ever after.

Not so.

Riku was part of this fairytale as well. The friend who was succumbed by darkness. Sora set forth to rescue him too. So when faced with the fact that his body had faded away into darkness, Sora didn't go back to Destiny Islands as planned. He left Kairi in Traverse Town where she would be safe and went hurtling back into the fray to defeat Ansem and rescue Riku. That plan went a little pear-shaped when he ended up locking him and the much sought for king that Donald and Goofy had relentlessly searched for in Kingdom Hearts so that the Heartless couldn't leak out into the realm of light. This ended up turning into an extended journey to look for Riku, once realising that there was no way he could go back to Destiny Islands with Kairi. His heart and Kingdom Hearts wouldn't allow it.

So Kairi waited for him and Riku to return to the islands. Sora had very little memory of what had happened during the year between the defeat of Ansem and the start of his troubles with the Organization XIII (though why was beyond him. He defeated six of them and then there were no more top members to defeat and one of them had turned his back on the Organization). All he remembered was waking up in a strange town called Twilight Town and finding out that his clothes were much too small for him now. That and the strange message to 'Thank Naminé' in Jiminy's journal.

Chasing after who he believed was Riku, he, Kairi and Riku in the form of 'Ansem' were reunited again at The World That Never Was to defeat the remaining members of the Organization, leading them happening to be Ansem's (who in actuality was called Xehanort) Nobody. Once Xemnas was defeated after a gruelling battle, Riku and Sora were returned to Destiny Islands thanks to Kairi's letter opening the door to light.

And now here he was. And he still hadn't kept to the script concerning with his supposed love for Kairi. He didn't _love_ Kairi. Not in that way.

He tossed the paopu fruit that Riku had given him a year ago onto his bedside table. He didn't know why he had kept it. Riku obviously had thought that he was going to share it with Kairi. That's why he teased him so much about it when he was fourteen and Riku was fifteen.

Truth was, Sora kind of hoped that none of them would share the paopu fruit. He didn't want anyone to be the third wheel.

But now thinking about it, it was tempting to share it with a particular someone. Sora sighed, flopping back onto his bed and going back to sleep.

_As if he would ever look at me in that light._

* * *

A few houses away, Riku was looking at the same scenery, going through the same thoughts. 

His story was different. He found himself accepting darkness not because he was tempted by power, but because he wasn't scared and thought that if anyone should save Kairi, it should be him, the self-proclaimed leader. How naïve of him was it to think that he could control himself when surrounded by darkness that teased and taunted him?

Maybe, when he saw Sora for the first time after the islands were destroyed, he thought that he and Sora could go together, he and his new friends, to find Kairi. That damn duck Donald had to be stubborn though and say no. It was then Maleficent told him the 'truth' about everything. That Sora had no interest in Riku and Kairi anymore. That he had new friends he would rather be with. Those lies that he took for truths sliced Riku up inside so much that he became determined to find Kairi on his own.

OK, so he helped Sora once after Maleficent's words but in reality, he would've preferred if Donald got taken by the Heartless. It was his fault that he went in so deep into the darkness.

Then he found Kairi. He had no idea how her body ended up in the emptiness of the cosmos but he had Hook take him to her via Maleficent's orders. When he saw her, he was overjoyed but then realised something was very wrong.

She was breathing but her eyes looked so blank and when he shook her to wake her up, when he listened closely…he couldn't hear her heart beating. Riku had found a mindless zombie of Kairi.

Desperate, he tried to order Hook to sail even further into the cosmos to find her heart but Hook was more interested in a girl from his world that he thought was a Princess of Heart. The fool was an absolute idiot. True that Wendy had all the qualities expected of a princess but she lacked the strength her heart needed.

He had to say, capturing Wendy was a lot easier than capturing Jasmine. Jasmine screamed and beat him, cursing him with every insulting name under the sun. Fortunately, Jasmine was forgiving once she cooled down. Now he respected her quite highly.

Getting back to the story, once he ranted at Hook, he found out that Sora had been captured. Feeling anger, he then turned his wrath on the fourteen year old showing him Kairi in her comatose state. By then, all emotion for his long time best friend had been eaten away, leaving only hatred and anger. Afterwards, leaving Sora to play with a shadow version of himself, Riku left the ship with Kairi, using the power of darkness Maleficent had so kindly bestowed upon him.

Then Hollow Bastion. He was revealed to be the true wielder of the Keyblade, but because he accepted darkness, his heart had been tainted and weakened. Sora had a stronger heart. Riku learned this after his, what seemed like the umpteenth time, he battled with Sora, only to lose to him…twice. And lose his body to the darkness in the process. At least he protected Kairi with whatever little strength he had left when Sora could not and he was able to close Kingdom Hearts with Sora and Mickey too. Those, he felt, were his only saving graces.

And so he just floated there, between dark and light, his heart and body on the verge of sleeping forever and fading away into nothingness…when a voice called for him. A voice called him to wake up, to get himself out of the nothingness in between the two realms, to go to Castle Oblivion. Maybe Riku thought that it was a chance to repent his sins as such but he found himself battling three members of Organization XIII and a replica of himself just to get to Sora who he found sleeping away as the Nobody Naminé repaired the damage done by her meddling with his memories. And seeing Sora, he realised all the pain, all the suffering, all the jealously towards him…it was because Riku craved for Sora's attention. He _**hated**_ it when Sora wasn't concentrating on him. And now that he thought about it, Maleficent knew that and used it to her advantage. She _controlled_ him. And then he was controlled by Xehanort (going by the name of Ansem). He felt so stupid for not seeing that.

So he went off on his own journey, to destroy the remaining members of Organization XIII who dared to meddle with his friend's feelings and emotions.

That was when he met him. Number XIII, Roxas, the Key of Destiny. There couldn't be anyone more different yet so similar to Sora in the world. It almost broke Riku's heart when he first saw those familiar blue eyes glaring at him for the first time. But he had to do what he had to do, even if it meant embracing the darkness lying on his heart and taking on the form of Xehanort so not to be found by Sora once he had awakened.

He avoided Sora as much as possible, giving the younger boy a hand via the king as much as he could until he felt good and ready to reveal himself.

Trust Kairi to break his cover. Trust Sora to breakdown into tears when he realised that 'Xehanort' wasn't Xehanort at all. Trust it all to just come pouring out of Sora's mouth and heart. Trust his own heart for struggling not to just hug the poor boy back.

And so here he was, no longer hiding behind a mask. No more Nobodies and Heartless to worry about. No darkness on his heart any longer. He was here. Home. And wondering about his feelings towards the brunet boy who had searched long and hard for him.

"Ah screw it," Riku muttered, opening his bedroom window. He swung his legs over and started scaling down the ivy that grew nearby. If he was in any luck, Sora would still be awake by the time he got there.

* * *

Sora woke up when he heard something banging against his window. He looked out, seeing the form of his silver-haired friend looking up at him, asking him to open the window. Sora did and watched as Riku agilely climbed up the loose bricks and ledges of Sora's home, pulling himself up onto the window ledge. Sora looked at him for the longest time before speaking. 

"So what brings you here?" he asked, glad that he wasn't in pyjamas. He had yet to get a new pair other than the paopu fruit ones that he had since he was thirteen.

"I've been thinking," Riku replied.

"Thinking?"

"What ifs and all that."

"Oh."

"Do you love her?"

Sora knew exactly who Riku had meant. He looked down, shaking his head. "No. I don't. I only see her as my friend."

"Do you think she realises that?" Riku asked after a pregnant pause. He remembered teasing Sora about it when they were younger, and Sora always seemed to blush or overreact to his teasing.

"She does," Sora whispered. "She talked to me about it."

"Oh?"

"She said she was OK, and she would've preferred it if we were friends anyway. Too much problems if we got together. Third wheels and then being three onesomes rather than a threesome."

Riku shuckled slightly. Kairi and her ways of explaining things. It was so typical of her.

"But what if two of us got together in the end?"

Sora seemed to think about this. And then he looked at Riku like he grew another head.

"You like her!"

"What?! No! I-"

"You do too! God, so this is what this is all about! You're asking permission if you can-"

Sora was cut off. Riku had tackled him onto the bed, both hands pinning Sora's arms above his head and legs straddling his waist. Sora went a bright shade of pink. Riku was fighting the urge to kiss him.

"I don't like Kairi. Not in that way," Riku explained slowly. Sora nodded his head, showing that he understood. Riku pursed his lips. "There is someone that I like. Someone who's really important to me."

Sora nodded his head, crystal blue eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. Riku's breath got caught at the sight. He had no control on what he was going to say. "They're beautiful."

"What is?" Sora asked quietly.

"Your eyes. They're like the ocean-calm when you are happy, and like a

raging storm when you're upset."

"Riku…"

"Sora, I like you. I always have. I just didn't realize it till I lost you for so long."

Riku looked at the younger boy, expecting to see disgust on his face. But Sora…Sora was smiling.

"You do huh?"

Riku nodded his head.

"Kiss me then."

"Wha?" Riku nearly fell off the bed when he heard that. Sora didn't just…

"I like you too. And I would prove it if you didn't pin me down here so that I can't move," Sora stated matter-of-factly.

Riku needed no second bidding as he dove in. At first, it was only a brushing of the lips, chastely pressed together. But then Riku started to get a bit experimental, sucking and licking Sora's bottom lip. Sora opened his mouth once he could no longer stand the feeling of bruised flesh pressed together, giving Riku access to drive his tongue into the younger boy's mouth, the muscle familiarizing itself to the cavern and coaxing the resident tongue into action. Sora was hesitant, but soon he began to gain confidence and was fighting back for control over the kiss. Riku angled his face, overpowering the younger boy. His hands loosened their grip, trailing down the Keyblade master's tanned arms and to his chest, going under the offending article of clothing to stroke him just above his naval. Sora arched underneath him, mewling quietly. Riku grinned into the kiss, moving away from his mouth and littering his neck and shoulders with soft kisses.

They just lay there, knowing that in the morning, they were going to have to explain to Sora's parents why their only son was lying in bed with his best friend with a huge bruise on his neck.

But for now, they were content just staying there with each other, arms wrapped around each other and living in their unorthodox happily ever after.


End file.
